Yeah, well this is a blogpost for 'white people.'

Now THAT is white

I get a lot of flack for many comments I make about certain things, but for one thing I say in particular. When someone is talking about something that isn't particularly good or is popular in American culture that really shouldn't be, or is seen as good by a particularly unpleasant segment of society, I'll usually say something like, "Yeah, that's because it's (pertinent subject here) for white people." This often comes up on the subject of food, which is something I take very seriously. Like when I hear that someone say, "Oh, I love Olive Garden, it's so good," I'll mention that, yeah, it's because it's Italian food for white people. Which it is. And as annoying as this type of broad commentary (and potential logical fallacy) can be, I feel it is valid, in its own subjective way.
It is my way of poking fun at a culture that I have become mostly disenchanted with, that being the general culture of 'white people,' by which I usually mean most Americans. The general attitude I have toward anything that has become popularized and/or Americanized is negative, therefore I find it displeasing or unpleasant. Examples: reality TV, chain restaurants, popular music, movies; but of course there exceptions to all these examples.
There are successful books and blogs on the subject of Stuff White People Like, and as amusing as they can be, there is a lot of truth behind it. I'm no cultural authority, but I live in America, one of the 'whitest' places on earth (although Japan seems to be catching up) and I live in Utah, definitely on of the whitest states, and in Utah county, undeniably the whitest area in the nation. And mostly republican, conservative and Christian. I feel like I am at the center of 'white' culture here, and that being the case, I am not only authorized to comment on it, but obligated to.

V'ere are your PAPERS!?!

If you have not been paying attention recently, the Arizona governor just signed a law that essentially gives police the authority to stop anyone they have "reasonable suspicion" to be an illegal immigrant, and demand they provide identification proving they are a citizen, and if not provided, they can go straight to jail, with the possibly of deportation. The moment the bill was passed, everyone started weighing in, of particular note was John McCain's daughter, Meghan McCain. Her father has as well, just today commenting that it was the Obama Admin's fault due to their failure to 'secure our borders,' ignoring the FACT that Bush's hollow gesture of erecting 700 more miles of fence was just that, a hollow gesture. The border with Mexico is 1,969 miles long, and over 250 million people cross it every year, whether legally or not. It's disrespectful, ignorant and outrageous to accuse Obama of one more thing that Bush let fall though his fingers.
This whole spectacle ends up being just another bandage on an open wound, where the problem is multi-faceted and significant. Mexico is doing little to stop the flow of immigrants and drugs, our visa and naturalization processes are too complicated, difficult and expensive, and Americans are far too overtly racist. There WILL be problems with racial profiling; American citizens will be harassed due to their ethnic background. This is not right, and the solution needs to be more comprehensive than a knee-jerk reaction that will simply weed out a few illegals in Arizona and send them home, with plenty of opportunity to come right back over the border. I can't tell what a good solution would be, I'm not invested enough in all the issues and politics surrounding this particular dilemma, but I still know when something isn't right, and demanding to see someone's papers because they 'look' like they don't belong is something we tried to put a stop to some years ago, if you will recall.

Dear Utah County

Just recently, the HOV lanes in Orem disappeared, part of a massive reconstruction effort in the county to widen the freeway and rebuild the bridges. These lanes will be gone for at least the next two years, while the freeway is worked on. Personally, I hope they were taken away as punishment to the majority of Utah County drivers who misuse and abuse the lanes constantly, especially during traffic hours. More times than I can count have I seen drivers who normally weave back and forth in traffic dodge into that lane and use it to pass the cars they were too impatient to wait for (which brings up the problem of the fast-lane campers that refuse to move out of the way for faster traffic) and pull in and out of it, over the double lines, usually without signaling. This is a bad and potentially deadly habit, one which I have to put up with when I ride my motorcycle and dare use the carpool lane. I can be traveling faster than the posted speed and still have someone come up behind me and weave around, putting my life on the line so they can get wherever they are going 30 seconds faster. Or perhaps imagine traveling down the HOV lane while the rest of the lanes are backed up and have someone shoot in front of you doing 20-30 mph slower than you, and you get to put your braking system to the ultimate test. Thanks alot, you inconsiderate, life-endangering assholes. I hope the carpool lanes don't come back, and you're stuck in traffic forever, in hell.

Man beaten by nature, once again

I found this interesting article today on Science Daily showing proof that lightning, in the right conditions, creates small particle accelerators in the upper atmosphere that have the energy of a small nuclear plant. There are several other phenomena associated with lightning and electricity that we know little about, like ball lightning, sprites, blue jets and bead lightning.
It was theorized back in 1925 that these high energy particle beams occurred, and it appears they do. Mother nature seems to cause this on merely on accident, or maybe just for the hell of it. We (everyone involved) spent almost 4.5 billion dollars on the LHC at Cern alone, and the first time they tried it, it broke the machine. There are 78 of these in the world currently, of varying sizes.
Man has been struggling to understand the universe for centuries, if not millenia. Lightning still remains relatively poorly understood, despite its common occurrence. It's also really cool to watch, especially in slow motion. This just goes to show us that we still have so much to learn about the forces in nature, even things that occur around us every day.

Beck Shows His Stripes

Although a tiger never changes his stripes, he may be able to cover them, possibly from the mounds of muck he has raked up over the years. In fact, some might even mistake a tiger for a completely different animal, and shower it with praise. Such an animal is Glenn Beck. This former morning zoo reject turned Mormon and conservative talk sweetheart/poster-boy admitted in an interview that appeared in Forbes magazine that, "I could give a flying crap about the political process...we're an entertainment company." I doubt that many of his die-hard followers would read such a hoity-toity elitist rag like Forbes, and would notice this. All the hateful ideological drivel he spouts is nothing more than a method for raking in substantial amounts of cash, the smallest fraction of which (a modest $2 million a year) from his popular 'entertainment' show, on which he constantly sheds tears and uses some of the most amazingly backwards, circular logic to make his famous (and famously parodied (2)) assumptions and connections. At first I wasn't able to figure out why people adore Beck so much, but it finally came to me. He's the Larry the Cable Guy of punditry. A pudgy, white, average-looking guy who wears a persona and a button-up shirt. Like a buttoned up shirt. He's not business-like as Hannity prefers to appear, or a cranky old fart like O'Reilly. He's the pale, religious guy that cries a lot, loves his country, and is just like you, but just happened to make 32 million dollars last year.
Good job turning all that fear-mongering into cold, hard cash, Beck.